A former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is urging Congress to enact consumer privacy legislation.
Jon Leibowitz, who led the agency from 2009 through 2013, said while consumer and business groups have called on lawmakers to act, Capitol Hill has failed to do so.
“Unless it [Congress] does so, the FTC and the states may end up using other tools to give Americans more control over personal information,” Leibowitz wrote in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal.
But state and regulatory agency efforts cannot be as comprehensive as federal law and could raise constitutional concerns, he added.
“Still, a patchwork of consumer privacy statutes and regulations is better than none at all,” he said.
Ten years ago, the FTC issued “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change.” The 112-page report recognized that self-regulation of privacy was not working and urged Congress to pass a measure to give Americans the right to opt out of most corporate data collection. For consumer health information, companies would be required to obtain opt-in, before collecting information.
Since then, Leibowitz wrote, the abuse of consumer privacy has gotten worse.
While Democrats and Republicans are far apart on many issues, protecting consumer privacy has never been a partisan issue, he wrote.
Polls by Morning Consult reveal 86% of Democrats and 81% of Republicans said Congress should make privacy law a priority.
In an interview with PYMNTS, Marc Rotenberg, president and founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit whose mission is to ensure digital and artificial intelligence policies promote a better society, said when it comes to protecting customer privacy, the United States can learn much from European regulators.
Learn more: US Must Learn From Europe in Privacy, AI Regulation, Says Policy Expert
“Unlike almost every modern nation in the world, the U.S. does not have a comprehensive federal privacy law,” Rotenberg told PYMNTS.